Ghaam

By Amit Pande

Ghaam is a coming-of-age story of a troubled young man, who is burdened by the feeling of emptiness and finds his life unfulfilling. Being dissatisfied with the urban life, he quits his job but unable to find his calling, he begins indulging in the various human vices to numb his pain, eventually he falls into depression and becomes suicidal. Wh

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ukiyoto Publishing
• Release date: Nov 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9789361727658

Book preview

Ghaam

A Journey back to Simpler Times

Amit Pande

Ukiyoto Publishing

All global publishing rights are held by

Ukiyoto Publishing

Published in 2023

Content Copyright © Amit Pande

ISBN

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

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To Harsh Vardhan Pande – Forever in our hearts

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

About the Author

Chapter 1

I

wish I could kill myself without feeling so guilty about it, I thought while lying in a cramped bathtub in the middle of a day. I wonder why they manufacture such useless tubs where even a man of average height can't relax without having to adjust his limbs in every few minutes but then again, we live in a society where it's less about utility and more about needless luxury. And now that I think of it, my entire apartment building in itself is a superficial conjugation of bricks and mortar, stacked up mindlessly to accommodate as many bodies as possible without any regards to the emotions that are going to dwell in there - a living room with not enough room to be yourself, bedroom not intimate enough to let your guards down, a balcony with no ventilation to calm your anxious mind. It's hard to call it a home, merely a shelter to temporarily hide yourself from the world. Hailing from a small town, the concept of apartments has always been foreign to me and after spending a better part of my adulthood in them, they have only felt unnatural. You can hear life happening upstairs- bust of laughter, creaking of chairs, thumping of feet, just few inches above you but you may never get to see their faces. It's like living with ghosts but only more bizarre, a group of strangers barely living and hauntingly existing. Suddenly, the thought of me wandering in these four walls as a ghost creep into my mind. Whenever I try to distract myself from my morbid thoughts, my mind has the tendency to slyly bring them back to me and then they stay there far too long for my liking.

Reality has been nothing but challenging, to put it in a most polite way. I don't like to sugar-coat my words, especially when I am in my head but I am practicing gratitude of late and I want to give it an honest try. The self-help book that I am reading says that healing is a messy process, but no wise words can prepare you for the emptiness that consumes you from inside, emptiness that can never be filled no matter how much of sadness you feed it day in and day out. I have reached a point in my life where there is no more fight left in me to pretend that I have got it all together. I am tired of keeping up the masquerade for this world. Now, I don't care if I am losing people from my life or letting the world see the miserable side of me. I am detached from my emotions for the most part and disassociated with the reality, and all I do is watch my life fall apart from distance. The idea of suicide doesn't seem to be so disturbing anymore. What my friends or relatives will think of me is least of my concern. I will be an occasional pop up in the minds of people I have known which will most likely be followed by the feeling of sadness or pity then they will again get busy with their own lives and there will come a time when they too will be gone for good, and I will become a nobody and my existence will come full circle. The only thing keeping me from taking the last step is my parents. I don't want them to live with a burden that they failed as one, they did the best they could. In a society where parents try to control every aspect of their child's life, they always gave me the freedom to make my own choices. Unfortunately, those choices led me to where I am today. Aren't we the sum total of all the choices we have ever made, particularly the ones that turned out to be bad in hindsight? And for the longest time, I have hated myself for not knowing better but now I have made peace with that too, but the regrets remain, they always remain and whoever tells you otherwise is delusional to his own sufferings. But I think even my parents will be better off without me. I am not another case of tragic human condition, I am too far gone. I have crossed the edge and there is no coming back from there. The person they will mourn is already dead. If I can get one wish right now in exchange for all my troubles, I won't waste it to get another chance at life but to disappear into thin air with a snap of a finger. Is it too much to ask?

My thoughts got interrupted by the sound of doorbell, and I know who is on the other side of the door. The society watchman has been pestering me for his festive bonus. It's been two weeks since the festival got over but he has still not given up. I understand that life is rough when you are living on hourly wages and who doesn't want to make some easy money? Maybe he wants to buy something nice for his family or maybe he is looking for his nightly fix of hooch. It's not that I always assume worst about a person but, lately due to personal reasons, I have stopped giving people benefit of doubt. The bell kept on ringing and like before I didn't open the door and let his patience run